The Miske Trial: The Accident That Led To Mike Miske’s Downfall
Prosecutors allege that Mike Miske wrongly blamed Jonathan Fraser for the death of his son, Caleb, and had him killed in retaliation.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Ian Lind’s blog, , and is reprinted here with the author’s permission.
Nov. 17, 2015 was a typical Tuesday evening at the Windward City Shopping Center in Kaneohe, located at the intersection where Likelike Highway crosses Kam Highway and becomes Kaneohe Bay Drive.
The weather was clear and the roads were dry. Shoppers meandered in and out of the mall, stopping to shop at Foodland, grab a cup of coffee at Starbucks, stop for dinner at one of the mall鈥檚 restaurants or take something home from McDonald鈥檚, KFC or other fast food spots.
On the corner next to McDonald’s, drivers topped off their tanks at the Chevron station, which has since been rebranded to Texaco after the sale of Chevron鈥檚 Hawaii refinery.
Cars exited from the back of the mall via Aumoku Street, a short distance from the intersection where they could turn onto Kaneohe Bay Drive, or continue through the intersection where the two-lane road became Makalani Street.
Caleb-Jordan Miske and Jonathan Fraser were hanging out at the mall as they often did, meeting up with friends near a popular vape shop.
The boys were best friends, likely because they had so much in common. Both were into cars and illegal street racing, bragging on social media about their 鈥淭eam Mad Dog.鈥 They shared a love of dogs, pit bulls in particular.
Both smoked weed and were laid back nice kids, people said.
On that evening, Caleb was showing off his 鈥渘ew toy,鈥 a black 1993 2-door Honda Civic sedan, older than he was, that he had purchased for $2,250 two days earlier after seeing it on Craigslist.
As friends stood around the car, Caleb invited Johnny to take a spin with him to see what the car could do. Johnny hopped in the passenger seat and they took off, heading toward Kailua on Kaneohe Bay Drive, doing a loop and then heading back.
As they approached the shopping center, witnesses reported hearing the engine revving as the Honda flew toward the Makalani Street intersection at what was later estimated at 93 miles per hour, nearly three times the posted speed limit.
At that moment a white 1998 Chevy S10 pickup truck that was turning left from the opposite lanes appeared directly in front of their car. There wasn鈥檛 time to hit the brakes or leave skid marks before the Honda hit the right front side of the truck, leaving a 2-foot-long gouge in the road at the point of impact and sending both vehicles spinning. The truck, with significant front-end damage, spun 37 feet across the intersection, while the Civic went airborne and ended as a crumpled wreck against a line of Areca palms on the far side of the highway.
It was 7:54 p.m., the moment their lives, and that of Miske鈥檚 father, Honolulu business owner Michael J. Miske Jr., changed forever.
Both young men were critically injured. Fraser was pulled from the wreckage and transported to The Queen鈥檚 Hospital, where he was placed into a medically induced coma. Caleb Miske was trapped in the wreckage and could not be transported until firefighters arrived with the 鈥渏aws of life鈥 hydraulic rescue tool and cut him free.
Fraser recovered sufficiently to be released from the hospital by the end of the year, but Caleb succumbed to his injuries after four long months of intense medical treatment.
The accident, and Caleb鈥檚 death, triggered a chain of events that were sparked by Mike Miske鈥檚 grief and misplaced desire for revenge. He had lost one of the most important things in his life, his son. And he blamed Fraser for Caleb鈥檚 death based on a mistaken insistence that Fraser had been behind the wheel when the accident occurred.
Miske held to that mistaken belief despite the mountain of unanimous evidence to the contrary, including police reports, observations recorded by police, emergency medical technicians, firefighters and witnesses at the scene, some of whom spoke to Caleb as he was trapped behind the wheel and later tried unsuccessfully to persuade Miske to accept the fact.
But after Caleb鈥檚 death, if prosecutors鈥 allegations are correct, Miske turned to his criminal network to exact personal and familial revenge, putting in motion a conspiracy to get rid of Fraser. Later, when asked about Fraser鈥檚 disappearance, Miske simply said confidently that he was gone.
In retrospect, it proved to be a disastrous decision. Fraser鈥檚 disappearance and apparent murder in July 2016 delivered to federal investigators what they had previously lacked 鈥 a new and shocking, high-profile crime that gave their ongoing investigation new focus and momentum.
But the nagging question is this: Did Mike Miske really believe that Fraser was the driver on the day of the accident, and that the many eye-witness accounts and official records were all somehow in error? Was it his hubris that, in the end, brought him down?
